Tracking Marketing ROI: The Numbers Every Owner Must Know

Local SEO Beyond Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is verified. You've added photos, picked the right categories, and you post a few times a month. So why have your map rankings stopped moving? In this episode of Marketing That Actually Works, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante break down what comes after GBP. The plateau most pest control operators hit isn't a Google Business Profile problem. It's a signal problem. Google cross-checks your profile against the rest of the web, and when the rest of the web is messy or thin, your rankings can only go so high. Adam and Elisabeth walk through the three local SEO signals that move pest control rankings beyond GBP: 1. NAP consistency across directories. Your business name, address, and phone need to match everywhere. Most operators have five to ten inconsistencies they don't know about, and those inconsistencies quietly cap how high they can rank. You'll get the directory list that matters most for pest control and a simple spreadsheet audit method you can run this week. 2. City and service pages on your website. Google ranks pages, not businesses. If you don't have a dedicated page for the next town over, Google has nothing to rank for that town's searches. Adam and Elisabeth cover what real city page content looks like, the on-page basics most pest control sites skip, and how many pages you actually need (hint: five to eight strong ones beat thirty thin ones). 3. Local backlinks from real community involvement. Once citations are clean and city pages are built, local backlinks are what push you past the plateau. Chamber memberships, sponsorships, local press pitches, and partnerships with realtors and property managers all create the geographic signal Google needs. You'll also hear which link-building tactics to avoid. Three Key Takeaways: 1. NAP consistency is the foundation. Audit your top directories and make sure your name, address, and phone match everywhere. 2. Service area and city-specific pages are how you rank in towns where your office isn't located. Five to eight strong pages beat thirty thin ones. 3. Local backlinks from real community involvement push you past the GBP plateau. The full sequence (citations, then city pages, then backlinks) takes a quarter of focused work. Most operators who follow it see ranking movement within 60 to 90 days. Want help putting this into action? Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai [http://marketingthatactuallyworks.ai]. While you're there, download the 20-point Pest Control Marketing Checklist we use with every client. Subscribe so you don't miss next Tuesday's episode: Email Automation, Set It and Forget It Lead Nurturing.

The Truth About Facebook and Instagram Ads

Did you spend $800 on Facebook ads and get zero leads? The problem probably isn't Facebook. It's what you asked Facebook to do. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante are joined by Hannah Kilpatrick, Cube Creative's Social Media Manager, to break down what social ads actually do for pest control companies and why most pest control owners are measuring them wrong. You'll learn why Facebook and Instagram are farming, not hunting, why creative matters more than targeting, the three ad shapes that work consistently for pest control, how much a 5-truck company should spend per month, and the three downstream numbers worth watching instead of cost-per-click. Plus Hannah's one-thing-to-try-this-week experiment that costs $50 and tells you whether your social strategy has a chance. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai [http://marketingthatactuallyworks.ai]. Score your website's AI search trust signals free at thecubescore.com [http://thecubescore.com].

Summer Marketing Strategy — Staying Visible in the Off-Season

Summer is when most pest control operators make their biggest marketing mistake. The trucks are full, the phones are ringing, and it feels like the right time to pause marketing and save the budget. But that pause creates a revenue cliff that hits hard in September and October. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante break down why going dark on marketing during busy season is the most expensive cycle in pest control, and what to do instead. They walk through the real cost of stopping and restarting: Google Ads campaigns that lose their optimization data, SEO rankings that slip while competitors keep publishing, and referral pipelines that dry up when customers stop hearing from you. The numbers are clear. Restarting a paused ad campaign costs 30 to 50 percent more per lead during the ramp-up period. Adam and Elisabeth lay out three practical summer strategies that keep your pipeline full without eating into field time. First, a seasonal content plan that turns active pest problems into blog posts and social content that drives traffic today and builds SEO authority for next year. Second, a fall pre-sell strategy using email campaigns to book rodent exclusion, wildlife prevention, and other fall services before the summer ends. They share a real client example: one August email offering 10 percent off fall rodent exclusion booked 40 jobs in three weeks. Third, three low-effort automated systems, Google Business Profile posts, automated review requests, and a lead nurture drip sequence, that run in the background while you focus on the work. The episode also covers renewal campaign timing, how to turn one blog post into a week of social media content, and why summer is actually the best time to market because your competitors have gone quiet. Three key takeaways: 1. Summer is not the off-season for marketing. Going dark now builds a revenue cliff you'll hit in September and October. 2. Companies that market year-round spend less per lead than companies that stop and restart. Every pause means paying to rebuild momentum. 3. Seasonal content, pre-selling fall services, and staying active on Google Business Profile keep your pipeline full without requiring much time. Download the free Summer Marketing Planner at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai [http://marketingthatactuallyworks.ai]. It's a month-by-month checklist covering June through September with content ideas, email campaign timing, and the fall pre-sell strategy from this episode. Next week: The Truth About Facebook and Instagram Ads with Hannah Kilpatrick.

Marketing Your Specialty Services: Termites, Bed Bugs, Wildlife

Most pest control companies treat termites, bed bugs, and wildlife like afterthoughts on their website. One paragraph each, buried under a generic services page. Then they wonder why the calls don't come in. In Episode 21, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and CMO Chad Treadway break down why specialty services need their own marketing playbook. These services often pay far more per job than recurring pest control, but most operators spend almost nothing marketing them on purpose. What you'll learn: * Why termite, bed bug, and wildlife customers search differently and need different content * The 8 to 10 termite pages every pest control site should have * Why the WDIR (wood-destroying insect report) market needs its own approach for real estate agents * How emotional copy and phone-first design win more bed bug jobs * Why speed to lead matters more for bed bugs than almost any other service * How state licensing shapes what you can and can't market in wildlife services * Seasonal timing for squirrel, bat, and rodent campaigns * Why putting price ranges on wildlife pages saves your phone team hours of dead-end calls * How to track each specialty as its own profit center Three key takeaways: 1. Specialty services need their own dedicated marketing. A buried subpage won't cut it. 2. Match your marketing to each service's customer mindset. Termites need education, bed bugs need reassurance, wildlife needs speed. 3. Track each specialty as its own profit center. The economics are different from your recurring pest control work. This episode is for pest control owners and marketing managers who do termite, bed bug, or wildlife work and want those services to pull their weight in the revenue mix. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai [http://marketingthatactuallyworks.ai]. While you're there, download the 20-point Pest Control Marketing Checklist we use with every client. About the show: Marketing That Actually Works is a 15-minute weekly podcast for pest control operators who want real growth, not empty promises. Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante from Cube Creative Design share practical, tactical marketing strategies you can use between service calls. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Hosts: Adam Bennett, CEO, and Elisabeth Pallante, Content Operations Manager, Cube Creative Design Guest: Chad Treadway, CMO, Cube Creative Design Coming next Tuesday: Episode 22 with Emily Porter on website speed and performance.

Website Speed and Performance — Why It Matters for Leads

Is your website fast enough to keep the leads you're paying for? If your site takes more than three seconds to load, nearly half your visitors are leaving before they see your phone number. That's not a tech problem. That's a lead problem. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante sit down with Cube Creative web project specialist Emily Porter to break down website speed and performance for pest control companies. Emily walks through exactly how to test your site speed using free tools, what the scores mean, and which fixes make the biggest difference. The conversation covers the three biggest speed killers Emily sees on nearly every pest control site audit: oversized images that balloon page weight to 15 times what it should be, plugin bloat from 30 or 40 plugins when most sites only need 10 to 15, and cheap shared hosting that puts a hard ceiling on how fast your site can load no matter what else you optimize. Adam and Elisabeth connect the technical side to real business impact. Companies spending thousands per month on Google Ads are losing a huge percentage of that traffic to slow load times, and operators never see the loss because there's no missed call for a visitor who bounced in two seconds. Elisabeth breaks down the revenue math: 1,000 monthly visitors, 40 percent bouncing from speed, and $4,000 in potential revenue walking out the door. Emily gives operators a clear action plan: test your site at pagespeed.web.dev [http://pagespeed.web.dev], check your mobile score, and hand the report to your developer. She provides four specific questions to ask your web developer this week and explains when optimization isn't enough and a rebuild makes more financial sense. Three key takeaways: 1. A slow website is costing you leads right now. More than three seconds to load and nearly half your visitors are gone before they see anything. 2. You can test your own site speed in under 60 seconds with free tools, and the fixes are usually straightforward. 3. The three biggest speed killers are oversized images, too many plugins, and cheap hosting. Fixing even one can cut your load time in half. Download the free Website Speed Checklist at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai [http://marketingthatactuallyworks.ai]. It walks you through everything covered in this episode, step by step. Next week: Marketing Your Specialty Services, Termites, Bed Bugs, and Wildlife, with Chad Treadway.